Name Gertrude Kerbis | ||
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Gertrude Lempp Kerbis (1926 – June 14, 2016) was an American architect. She worked for and studied under some of the most significant modernists of her day, including Carl Koch, Walter Gropius, and Mies Van Der Rohe. She played a leading role in designing several major examples of American modernism, including the Lustron house, the US Air Force Academy, and the O'Hare International Airport rotunda. She founded the Chicago Women in Architecture group in 1973.
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Life and education
She was born Gertrude Lempp in the Northwest side of Chicago, Illinois to working class, immigrant parents. Her father, Eugene Lempp, was from southern Germany and her mother, Emma, was from White Russia. After graduating from Foreman High School, she start attended Wright Community College, but transferred to University of Wisconsin when her family briefly moved to Wisconsin. There she was introduced to architecture through an article by Frank Lloyd Wright. She was inspired to pursue architecture, but as there wasn’t a program at the University of Wisconsin, she transferred to the University of Illinois in 1948, where she took undergraduat degree in architectural engineering. She then went to the Harvard Graduate School of Design, where Walter Gropius was teaching, from 1949-1950. In 1954 she received her master degree from the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago, IL, where she studied under Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Walter Peterhans. She briefly married Peterhans and they had a son, Julian. They divorced and later she married tennis professional Donald Kerbis who had a daughter, Lisa Kerbis, from a previous marriage. They had another child together, named Kim.
Employment
Her first job, while at Harvard, was working in the studio of Carl Koch, a teacher at MIT. After graduation in 1954 she worked at the office of Skidmore, Owings, and Merill until 1959. She then worked for Naess and Murphy from 1959–1962, and again from 1965–1967. She started her own firm, Lempp Kerbis, in 1967. Throughout she taught at Harper Community College in Palatine, IL for 25 years total.
Projects
Awards
Groups
Design style
Kerbis was inspired by, worked for, and studied under some of the most significant modernist architects of the 20th century, including Frank Lloyd Wright, Carl Koch, Walter Gropius, and Mies Van Der Rohe. Their influences are evident in many of Kerbis's designs. Just as Mies Van Der Rohe developed used minimal structural framework balanced against free flowing space, the Rotunda Building takes a similar approach. The influence of her teacher, Walter Gropius, is seen in the simplistic and aesthetically pleasing, yet functional design of Mitchell Hall, the US Air Force Academy dining hall.